Re: Doomsday argument & Shooting Room

Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 11 Dec 1996 14:24:59 -0600

> The doomsday argument says it should be much nearer to 1/6 than to
> 1/36. Yet if you don't know how many people are in the room with you,
> I think it would have to be nearer to 1/36, the opposite bias! I
> think you do get the bias Leslie expects, however, if you can see how
> many people are in the room with you. (Anyone want to work through
> the details?)

Say WHAT? Your chance of winning is ((1/6 + 1/36) / 2) = 7/72 or around
9.7%. The number of people in the room has NOTHING to do with this any
more than the number of clouds in the sky, unless you're being assigned
to some post-hoc group.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.